System Crash
Tech giants like Google and Facebook have conquered — some would say killed — the internet. Elon Musk used his platform to help elect Trump, and Silicon Valley elites want to gut the public sector. OpenAI and Microsoft aim to wipe away millions of jobs. Uber is driving down wages. Apple is impenetrable. Amazon is inescapable. All this high tech, and our quality of life is getting lower. The system has crashed.
So, System Crash: a weekly tech news show willing to tell the hard truths about how tech — and the titans who own and operate it — is really transforming the world. Co-hosts Paris Marx and Brian Merchant dissect the stories that matter, break news of their own, offer expert commentary, and interview journalists, whistleblowers, authors, and tech workers and ordinary people fighting back.
System Crash
Science Fiction in the Days of American Authoritarianism ft. Annalee Newitz & Charlie Jane Anders
In the latest episode of our Elon In Power series, we’re joined by sci-fi authors and Our Opinions Are Correct co-hosts Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders to dig into how science fiction shaped Elon Musk, and how Musk uses it to shape his own mythology. We explore the problems with how Musk interprets (and fails to interpret) sci-fi stories, and the ways sci-fi memes are deployed to justify the visions of the future tech billionaires are trying to realize. Annalee and Charlie Jane also share their thoughts on where they find hope in this moment, and how science fiction can help us through it.
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